Metal Gear Rising fanart will whet your appetite

The upcoming Metal Gear game, which has switched names from Metal Gear Solid: Rising to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Revengeance? What?) during its development (pushing three years now since it was announced at E3 2009), is quite the departure for the long-running series, published by Konami.

Platinum Games, the company behind Bayonetta and MadWorld for the Wii, is developing a spin-off that replaces stealth with hack-and-slash action. The events of Rising take place between Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

To get gamers excited for the release (set for sometime in 2012), @Konami tweeted some fanart by "Rub-a-Duckie" of Raiden, the cyborg ninja star of the game: "#MetalGearRising Raiden cuts right through the page with this amazing fanart by Rub-a-Duckie! ow.ly/i/unwr"